Gentrification and complexity – field-based workshop for A Level teachers

This one-day workshop is designed to introduce A Level teachers to new ways of explaining changing places with a particular focus on connections between people, the economy, and the ways that infrastructure(s) link the local, national, and international scales.

Led by academics based at the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London, we will explore topics including:

• How you can understand neighbourhoods and cities as complex systems (which gives you new ways to think about economic change and social inequality).
• How you can use fieldwork to ground these ideas in practical questions of past and present connections, and shifts in the flows of people, resources, money and investment.
• How you can put these two strands together to create simple simulations of residential gentrification and discrimination, and how simulations of urban phenomena can be used to generate hypotheses about how cities work.

We will be based at UCL's new Stratford campus in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. On the day, you will be taken on a guided tour of the Park and nearby neighbourhoods including Stratford and Hackney Wick, exploring the history of the area and how and why it has changed over the past 150 years.

This will be followed by a series of workshops introducing free software tools including NetLogo, QGIS, and Memory Mapper — a digital participatory mapping tool developed at CASA — to explore and explain what we encounter in the field.

The day will include use of online resources including:

• A talk on complexity science by Professor Elsa Arcaute;
• A podcast about theories of gentrification by Professor Adam Dennett and Professor Jon Reades; and
• A set of materials demonstrating how to use QGIS to conduct quantitative analyses of gentrification using a range of data sources.

The workshop and accompanying resources are designed to support teaching of the A Level curriculum, including skills that could also be employed in preparation for the NEA.

Booking information

• Advance booking for this event is required. In order to book you will need an account on our website. If you already have an account you will be prompted to log in when you click 'book now'. Please create an account if you do not have one yet (you do not need to be a member of the Society to create an account).
• Please download background information and further details (DOC).

Attending in-person

• Meeting point at 09.30am: outside One Pool Street - 1 Pool Street, London, E20 2AF.
• Lunch will not be provided – please bring your own, or you can purchase lunch/drinks during the day. We will be outside and walking around for part of the day. Please wear suitable footwear and prepare for all possible weather conditions on the day.
• Refer to the joining email that will be sent out shortly before the event for details about how to contact us on the day, if needed.
• It is essential for all delegates to provide their mobile phone number, in case we need to contact you on the day. Please fill in the form requesting this within the pre-event email.

If you have any questions or require assistance with your booking, please email events@rgs.org